N.J. Democrats must step up on education reform

Aristide Economopoulos/The Star-LedgerNewark students are pictured in this Star-Ledger file photo.

Good luck finding common ground among Republicans and Democrats on issues such as taxes, climate change or health care. It is almost as if we are two nations, not one.

But education reform is different. On this issue, you can find odd political bedfellows all over the place. Newark Mayor Cory Booker, for example, is in near-complete agreement with Republican Gov. Chris Christie. The Rev. Reginald Jackson, head of the Black Ministers’ Council, has broad common ground with state Sen. Tom Kean, the Republican leader in the Senate.

They all want tenure reform. They all want to open and expand good charter schools and to close down the bad ones. They all want to experiment with a pilot program to provide vouchers for private school tuitions.

Given that, you might think that education reform is greased for passage. But you’d be wrong. This remains a tough slog and the endgame is by no means assured. The irony is that Republicans are in lock-step support of reform while Democrats are not — even though the failing schools are mostly in Democratic territory. (See Christie’s comments on opposite page.)

Tenure reform, the most important part of this package, is facing stubborn opposition. Democrats won’t kill it outright, but they may weaken it enough to justify a veto by Christie.

Research shows that children suffer lasting damage when they have a bad teacher for even one or two years. In urban districts, where more kids are struggling to begin with, the damage is magnified.

No one disputes that the tenure system, however noble its intent, has morphed into a mind-boggling maze of protections for even the most outrageously bad teachers. It can takes years to remove a bad teacher, at a cost that can easily reach $200,000.

Sen. Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex) is drafting more sensible rules. Under her bill, a teacher could lose tenure after two years of bad evaluations, under a streamlined process.

The big fight now is over seniority protections during layoffs. To the teachers’ union and many Democrats, seniority protection for union workers is a core value. The existing rules enshrine that, by requiring the least experienced teachers go first, even when they are top performers.

That rule is certain to change. The problem is that teachers who have tenure today might be exempted. In effect, that would phase in the change over many years, condemning more children to lasting damage.

Here’s our suggestion: The Legislature should apply the Cami Anderson test to any reform.

Anderson is the superintendent in Newark who has established an “excess teacher pool” for educators whom no principal wants. It has about 80 unneeded teachers in it, at a cost of $8 million a year.

That sounds crazy, but it’s not. Because under existing tenure rules, Anderson can reduce her staff only if she’s willing to lay off her best young teachers first. She won’t do it, and she’s right not to. Under the watered-down rules Democrats are considering, that would not change.

So here’s the test: If tenure reform doesn’t allow Anderson to get rid of the teachers no one wants, then it’s not real reform.

Democrats need to remember there’s another core value at stake here: doing right
by our children.